Although my blog is entitled Mary Anne's Alaska, it would be just as fitting to call it Mickey's Alaska. In my last post I described how living in Alaska makes me feel close and connected to my wonderful late mother. She spent half her life in the Last Frontier and loved everything about this state. I feel I get to honor her legacy simply by embracing the beauty and lifestyle of Alaska and providing my children the chance to know and love it too.

I've done something special to celebrate her birthday every year since she died, and in honor of her recent birthday, I thought I'd share a few photos of her in her Alaskan surroundings in younger years.

She was a great cross-country skier! She competed in high school and always loved getting outside into the fresh, cold stillness. A good workout was just the added bonus! Pictured here, she and her brother were skiing just down the hill from their house in Anchorage.

This is one of my favorite photos of her. I believe this was her entrance/application photo for the Fur Rendezvous pageant as a senior in high school. Behind her is Portage Glacier, which has since receded out of sight from the spot this photo was taken. (This fantastic and entertaining article written by a University of Alaska faculty member explains the retreat of the glacier, and you might be surprised by the reason!)

"Fur Rondy" is a winter festival that's been held in Anchorage in February for over eighty years and is full of events from wacky to traditional. (I've personally participated in the Running of the Reindeer, a human race involving loose reindeer bolting down the road between and around runners!) Rondy hosts the ceremonial start of the famous Iditarod dog-sled race.

She wasn't crowned Fur Rondy Queen, but she was named Miss Congeniality of the pageant!

I'm not sure where in Alaska this one was taken, but I love everything about it—the birch log fence, the fall colors, and her posing in that red dress.

The background of this photo was slowly unraveled by my dad's eye for detail and great insight and memories. This was likely taken at Noyo Harbor in Fort Bragg, California, rather than Alaska. If so, my mom was visiting relatives who lived there and fished from there. I love her posing with these salmon (at least one of them is a king salmon, also known as a chinook). An Alaska girl through and through! I don't remember her actually doing much fishing when I was growing up, but she was busy providing a great environment for me to learn fishing from my dad, a pastime that has endured for me through the years. (Although now we fish to fill our freezer!)

This photo is so special to me since I am right in the same season of life my mom was in (with her first child) when this photo was taken. Story goes that it was her spontaneous idea to hop in the trees for this picture on the trail up to Flattop Mountain, and it turned into a beautiful memory.

This one is around the same timeframe as the last photo. My parents stood with my oldest brother in my grandfather's yard, the same Chugach Mountains in the background that I get to look at every day from my home. In the background on the right side was the trailer park my grandpa owned and managed. He sold it later on, and in its place is now a large condominium complex, so photos like this of the way things were back then are special to see.

This photo was taken in Oregon during my childhood (I'm the little one in red!). Mom was always up for outdoor adventures and wanted to be sure to introduce us kids to all kinds of new experiences. I ended up sitting this excursion out in the lodge with my dad, but I'm happy to report that as a grown-up (with much longer legs than I had in this photo, which makes it a little easier to keep up or set my own pace!), I love cross-country skiing. :)

Finally, one of the last photos I have of my mom in Alaska. Mom was generally the one behind the camera in all our years with her, so I cherish this photo. I was visiting when this was taken, and we were up at the Glen Alps viewpoint, overlooking Anchorage, near the base of the Flattop Mountain trailhead (the same trail pictured a few photos back in the photo of her and my oldest brother in the trees).

Have you ever explored a place and felt like you could almost experience with all your senses what life was like for the people who lived there long ago? That’s how I felt during my visit to Kennecott Mines National Historic Landmark. The old mining town (see a map here) has been beautifully preserved and is being carefully restored, little by little. The result is an unforgettable piece of history deep in the Alaskan wilderness, far from civilization and at the end of a questionable road with no other way in or out.

The mill is one of the oldest freestanding wooden structures in the world, I believe. The tour that took us through the 14-story building was impressive and well worth the money, as we were escorted all throughout the old building (which involved making our way down many sets of steep, narrow stairways that were more like ladders!). The whole building had that awesome old wood smell, and most of the machines and contraptions laborers had used to process the copper were still intact enough to get the general idea.

Several mines in the mountains extracted ore from some of the richest copper veins that had ever been found. A railroad was built from Cordova to Kennecott in the early 1900s through nearly impossible terrain and weather, and now visitors can drive on the McCarthy Road (built over the last sixty miles of the old railroad) to get to Kennecott.

The whole area was bought by the National Park Service, and a tour company runs glacier and mill-town tours. Kennicott Glacier Lodge (yes, the mine and the lodge/town/glacier have been spelled differently for decades) offers rooms and a formal dining area. I could've spent hours just wandering around in the lodge and reading all the early-1900s advertisements they had on the walls! Back on the main street (more like a path) are a few gift shops and more old buildings you can explore and watch videos and or read more history. A handful of people live in the town year-round, but other than that, you’re surrounded by blissful nature and history, history, and more history!

I’m not the type who loves to read all the informational signs in museums or places like this (my husband does!), but I think I almost could have here! I can’t say enough how many fascinating things we learned on the tour and throughout the town. This place was seriously amazing, and I can only imagine the stories kids who grew up here could tell!

If you get the chance to visit Alaska (or you live here already), GO to Kennecott if you can! It quickly became one of the most memorable places I’ve ever been in Alaska. Between the mill town, hiking on the glacier, and driving the unique McCarthy Road, this trip was unforgettable!

I didn’t know how refreshing being off the grid for a few days would be until we did it. As we drove back into town, I felt some sort of sadness to be back to “easy” life in civilization. I got a glimpse of the hard work required to live so far away from modern conveniences, but I admire those who live that way daily. You experience a special peace when you get away from life’s noise and fast pace.

For those of us Alaskans who don’t live a total subsistence lifestyle and have jobs that require us to live in town, we are fortunate enough to have these kinds of places to drive, boat, or fly to. A couple weeks ago my husband, his parents, and I got to enjoy an off-the-grid retreat via the historic McCarthy Road, located in the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park.

What a trip! The scenery of the Glenn Highway northeast of Palmer is incredible. I’m blown away every time. The road winds through a canyon, following a river that begins at the gorgeous Matanuska Glacier (a fun place to hike!). Tall, rugged mountains hug you from both sides as you drive. The greenery this time of year is lush and beautiful. Unfortunately, I didn’t really get pictures of this drive, as I was preoccupied just staring out the window! Here’s a shot of fireweed, one of our beloved Alaskan wildflowers. You can see just a bit of another glacier in the background coming down between the mountains. I took this once we got out into more wide-open land.

After a quick stop at The Hub of Alaska in Glennallen, a quirky place to stop for gas, snacks, and random Alaskan souvenirs, we stopped at Circle F Ranch to see the yaks, and this country girl LOVED it! My husband knows my dream is to move out of town and have at least a couple acres but still live close enough that he can commute to work. I learned from this rancher, who supplies starter herds to people all over the state, that we could have a few yaks with just a couple acres! Hmmm…

Supposedly they have tasty, lean meat, and their fur is soft but strong and can be made into a yarn similar to but not as expensive as qiviut, a luxurious yarn made from musk ox fur. The man who runs this hundred-acre ranch has worked hard to raise a tame herd. We walked right in among them and even got close to their newborn calves!

We continued on toward the B&B we were to stay at and stopped to look at the fish wheels set up on the Copper River. New fish wheels aren’t allowed anymore, so only the existing ones that have been grandfathered in are still standing on Alaska Native corporation land.

After the sleepy but charming town of Chitina (pronounced “Chitna”), we turned onto the famed McCarthy Road. The current road was built over an old railroad created to haul copper from the Kennecott Mine in the early 1900s. The road is still rough, so you have to drive slowly the whole way, but we were pleasantly surprised at the current condition it’s in. Here’s some interesting info about the road.

We pulled off on a small dirt shoulder high above a canyon so I could get a few photos of the beautiful Chitina River. I scrambled down fifteen feet, and I could only see wilderness all around me. We saw no cars on the road for quite a while, and at this part of the road there were no visible buildings anywhere. What refreshed me the most, though, was the smell! Almost all of Alaska’s air is really fresh, but Anchorage’s air has nothing on the wild air of Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, the United States' largest national park! I dragged myself back to the car after deeply inhaling the pure oxygen, and we continued on.

A little later, we came around a bend toward an old, high bridge that my father-in-law recognized as the Kuskulana Bridge, which they’d walked across when my husband and his brothers were young. He drove the car down a muddy path and parked underneath the bridge, and then we hoisted ourselves up onto the concrete base and then the metal-grate walkway.

I would not call myself scared of heights, but walking on this thing made my body involuntarily shake! I enjoyed looking down at the rushing river 238 feet below me, and I made it out to the middle point (the whole bridge is over 500 feet long), but it was a pretty crazy—and memorable—experience.

Stay tuned for more of our off-the-grid adventure! Next up, the bed-and-breakfast with million-dollar views and a hike on a magnificent glacier! (Read it here!)

It's hard to get impatient at the frequent construction delays during an Alaskan summer when you have views like these out your windows!

After our night at Byers Lake Campground, we continued north toward Fairbanks. Denali was showing off, displaying bright, rugged peaks that stood in contrast to the green swamp spruce and smaller mountains all around it.

We needed a bathroom break and pulled off at a sign that said Denali Park Village. Going down the driveway gave us a view of a large resort decked out in Alaskan finery (aka log buildings and rustic signs). After parking, we strolled into "Miners Plaza," which had an abundance of little shops and Alaskan activities surrounding a pretty courtyard, but everything seemed to be closed until later in the afternoon. We walked the other way to find a bathroom in the main building. The lodge's decor was woodsy and historic-themed, and it looked like the typical expensive place to stay in Alaska during the summer (budget accommodations are practically nonexistent here in summertime, unless you have a tent and sleeping bags). You couldn't see Denali from there, but the resort was situated on the Nenana River, where we saw a rafting group put in with a guide.

A little farther down the road were a few more lodges and a lot of shops and restaurants, right within the entrance of Denali National Park (not to be confused with the small bit added later as a state park, which is where we camped the night before). We didn't take the road into the national park this time, but it's on our to-do list!

Once we arrived in Fairbanks, we had a great time visiting with some of my relatives. My cousin took us on a bike ride to nearby Pioneer Park, which I wanted to show my husband, since he'd never been there. It's a theme park, but not in the Disneyland sense. They have historic buildings and boats/trains, shops, museums, food, and a lot of open grassy areas for picnics and games. A bunch of people were enjoying live music on the lawn when we came through. The best part is that getting into the park doesn't cost anything. You only have to pay admission for certain museums and, of course, food.

Our time in Fairbanks was short, and we finished our evening with a ninety-minute drive to Chena Hot Springs Resort. The road ran alongside a river and was sandwiched in by hills and mountains. Most of it was state land used for recreational purposes. Chena Hot Springs is at the end of that road, and it's pretty neat to see the ways the resort has become self-sufficient, from running a power plant to growing their own food.

I'll get the bad out of the way first. Our little room (in one of the buildings pictured below) was way less than satisfactory! Without going into detail, I'm not even sure they went through half the normal cleaning routine for a hotel room.

But now on to the good! The grounds are lovely, and this place is nestled in the mountains far from anything else. We were given a map showing the many hiking trails and ponds and things to see. The grounds have some unique art, like the metal dragon below, and so many gorgeous flowers they grew right there in greenhouses!

If you don't want to know where the dinner comes from at the restaurant, don't wander over to the animal pens! Several reindeer were grazing, oblivious to the concept of reindeer sausage. The chickens were chasing each other and had an obvious pecking order. The goats, in the same enclosure as the chickens, were watching indifferently.

The original hot springs pond is, I think, 156 degrees Fahrenheit and is enclosed by a fence so no curious creatures (humans or animals) wander in and get a good scalding. Pictured below is one of the cooling ponds that receives water from the springs. The algae looks appealing, doesn't it? OK, maybe not.

Below is the rock lake, into which unfiltered hot spring water is pumped. Apparently they empty it every week and then refill it, but it is still a "swim at your own risk" situation since the water is not treated. My husband enjoyed a nice, relaxing dip, but I wasn't in the mood for swimming with a sinus infection.

The grounds have a lot of old farming and homesteading implements, and I loved this old snowmachine! In the background you can see the pool building, which houses the indoor swimming pool and a couple hot tubs for those who aren't adventurous enough to try the rock lake.

The resort came into existence 110 years ago! The history of how it was found and how the water is unique can be read here, on the resort's website.

I loved wandering around and seeing the vegetable and herb gardens.

All in all, it was a fun place to visit, but next time we will camp there or just drive up for the day rather than stay the night in one of their rooms. We'd also love visit the ice museum there (which stays at 20 degrees F no matter what the season) and possibly pay for one of the outdoor activities they offer. And I'd love to see how everything looks in the winter, which is their busy season due to tourists coming to see the northern lights.

We were excited to head home and get a good sleep before Monday came around (which didn't happen at all, due to the wildfire) but wanted to stop at a few places along the way. We found the Alaska Coffee Roasting Company, which we will definitely come back to next time we're in Fairbanks! We got a delicious pizza, coffee, and a smoothie, and the many baked goods were tempting! But we had homemade cookies and cinnamon rolls in the car. :)

We drove up to the University of Alaska Fairbanks, high on a hill, and ate lunch overlooking the city. Fairbanks is so different from Anchorage. The farmland and sprawling look is of great contrast to Anchorage's bunched-in-tight cityscape, surrounded by water and mountains on all sides. We then drove to the botanical gardens just down the hill and enjoyed a quick walk before getting on the road.

Until we were delayed by the wildfire closer to home, our trip was uneventful and generally beautiful. I'll leave you with one parting shot of Denali that I took through a telescope at a rest stop. Hope you get the chance someday to take a road trip north in this beautiful state! Alaska's motto is, after all, North to the Future!

The conception of Independence Mine was proof of what thinking outside the box can do. Robert Lee Hatcher, who became the namesake of the area in which Independence Mine resides, wasn’t content to seek his riches from the gold-laden creeks in what became known as the Willow Creek Mining District. He knew there had to be a source for all the wealth many were pulling out of the creeks, and he searched the mountains until he literally struck gold. In 1906 he staked a claim high in the mountains, and I doubt he knew his discovery would become the most abundant and concentrated gold mine in Southcentral Alaska. That only came to be because many innovative miners wised up and realized their finances and energy would be far more useful together. One large company was created, called the Alaska-Pacific Consolidated Mining Company, and its gold claims in the area covered over 1,300 acres of land. The weight of gold extracted from Hatcher Pass came to nearly 39,000 pounds. In today’s dollars, that would bring in over $300 million dollars.

What gets my curiosity going the most is wondering what daily life was like for the people living and working there. Were the handful of wives and mothers that lived in the small settlement near the mines excited to be part of such a grand adventure? What was school like for the children in a frenzied mining area? Did the miners consider their sacrifices worth it years later?

After a grueling day of hard labor, carrying, bending, lifting, moving, and standing, how much relief did they feel turning a doorknob like the one that was once here?

How did it feel to stand on this deck and look out at what was likely one of the most majestic panoramas they had ever seen? Was it intoxicating to breathe the mountain air so pure?

Did they look up at the mine shafts in wonderment or dread every morning after what was probably too short of a rest?

I will never know how these people felt and lived, but I can only imagine how thrilling and exhausting this lifestyle was. I feel privileged to experience this remnant of recent history in Alaska, and I'm already planning trips to more of the historic mines in the state! To read more about gold mining in Hatcher Pass (and read where I got much of this information), visit these sites: HERE and HERE. And check out Remembering the Gold Days, my first post in this series of two.

Hello!

I'm a mom of twins, published author, editor, amateur photographer, and nature enthusiast with an unlimited supply of curiosity. Come discover the little wonders I find during my everyday life in Alaska.